Monday, March 17, 2008

Help us decorate the Library!

In celebration of National Library Week (April 13-19), we are going to order 10 celebrity READ posters to permanently hang throughout the University Library. You've probably seen these in your public library or elsewhere; each poster implores you to READ and pictures a celebrity with a book that influenced him or her. The current crop of celebrities includes movie and TV stars, athletes, recording artists, comedians, famous scientists, and some real-life heroes.

Since there are almost 50 posters available and we only have space for 10, we're asking YOU the campus community to tell us which ones you'd most like to see in the Library. Please click here to take our poll! You can vote for up to three posters and we will order the top 10. The poll will be live through Friday, March 28, so even if you're swamped with midterms now, you'll still have a chance to vote during Spring Break.

If you'd like to look at the posters before you decide, here are direct links to each of them in alphabetical order (of course!) by the celeb's first name:

Abigail Breslin/Meet Kit: An American Girl 1934
Aishwarya Rai/The Alchemist
Alan Rickman/The Catcher in the Rye
Anthony Hopkins/The Great Gatsby
Ben Roethlisberger/The Giving Tree
Bernie Mac/Armed and Dangerous
Bill Gates/The Old Man and the Sea
Cesar Millan/The Power of Intention
Colin Farrell/Dubliners
Common/The Audacity of Hope
Corbin Bleu/The Cat's Pajamas
Dakota Fanning/Charlotte's Web
Danica Patrick/Sam's Letters to Jennifer
Denzel Washington/Green Eggs and Ham
Dominic Moore and Kevin Weekes (NY Rangers hockey players)/Anansi Boys and Future of Ice
Enrique Iglesias/The Old Man and the Sea
Ethan Hawke/Go Tell It on the Mountain
Ewan McGregor/Beatrix Potter: The Complete Tales
George Lopez/Oh, the Places You'll Go!
Hilary Swank/The Freedom Writers Diary
Ice Cube/The Greatest: Muhammad Ali
Jamie Kennedy/Where the Wild Things Are
Jason Kidd/The Dream Keeper and Other Poems
Jeff Corwin/My Side of the Mountain
John Leguizamo/Conquest: Montezuma, Cortez, and the Fall of Old Mexico
Johnny Damon/A Trip to the Beach
Julia Stiles/Me Talk Pretty One Day
Keira Knightley/Pride and Prejudice
Kelly Ripa/The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Linda Cardell and Kobie (Search and rescue dog)/Emma and the Night Dogs
LL Cool J/The Children's Health Food Book
Margaret Cho/Almost Home: My Life Story
Mat Hoffman/Duck on a Bike
Matt Kenseth/The Testament
Missy Elliott/A Chair for My Mother
Orlando Bloom/Lord of the Rings
Renee Fleming/Anthology of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales
Rick Bayless/Betty Crocker's Cookbook for Boys and Girls
Robert McGuire (FDNY firefighter)/Fire Fighters
Salma Hayek/Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo
Sasha Cohen/The Kite Runner
Sean Connery/The Spirit of Scotland
Sendhil Ramamurthy/The Tower Treasure
Serena Williams/A Raisin in the Sun
Shaquille O'Neal/Undying Glory
Stephen Hawking/Marilyn Monroe
Tim Gunn/The Magic Mountain
Tony Hawk/High Fidelity
Trace Adkins/Gods and Generals
William H. Macy/Curious George
Yo-Yo Ma/Goodnight Moon

Women's History in Documents Display

Celebrating Women's History Month, there is a new display of government publications relating to contributions made by, and changing status of, women in the United States. The display is located on the second floor of the University Library, near the stairs.

In addition to the featured materials on display--all of which circulate--there are also excellent reference materials relating to women's history in the federal collections, 2nd floor. One fine publication is "Women in Congress, 1917-2000," SUDOCS number Y: 1.1/2: Serial 14903. This 1,000 page resource contains short biographies and photographs of women who have served the nation as legislators.

Monday, March 10, 2008

On a bleary Monday morning: some advice

The night supervisor told me he had a rather rough night at work last night. Lots of people in the library forgetting they were in a library, mainly, but something happened that threw him for a loop. Bearing in mind that he's only worked here since this past summer, he hasn't encountered every possible problem and/or emergency, but last night something happened that most of us haven't dealt with, even someone like me who's been here almost five years: someone dropped a study room key down the gap between the floor and the elevator, which means there's a study room key at the bottom of the elevator shaft.

Well, folks, this presents a problem. It's like those people who, while walking across the bayou, manage to drop their keys down the gaps in the bridge, or over the railing. It's just about impossible to retrieve them.

So, folks, some advice: be careful with study room keys. Put them in your pocket, purse, or backpack, until you get to the Circulation Desk to turn them in. Likewise, when crossing the bayou, also keep your keys safe!